Labor Dispute Takes to Airwaves

15 Jul 2008 // Two business-backed groups are targeting congressional candidates in half a dozen states with critical advertising based on their support for a piece of pro-union legislation.

The campaign is the latest example of the record amount of money pouring into this year's election. The two groups expect to spend a combined $50 million in the months leading up to November in an attempt to blunt a far-richer effort by organized labor. Unions have said they plan to spend $300 million on the coming election, mostly on voter turnout and issue advertising.

The ads center on a core dispute between business and labor over the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give unions the choice to organize workers through a card-signing process rather than a secret-ballot election. Business groups say workers would face pressure from union organizers to sign the cards. The legislation passed the House last year but could not overcome a filibuster in the Senate.

Business and labor both believe the legislation could cause a sea change in union organizing if enacted, helping unions rebuild their thinning ranks. Labor is hoping it will help reverse a long-term decline that has brought union membership to less than 8% of private-sector workers, roughly half the percentage of 25 years ago. Unions say employer opposition during organizing drives has hurt the unionization rate as much as outsourcing and other economic factors.

Both sides have made the legislation, likely to come up for a vote again next year, a hot-button issue.

One group attacking the legislation is the Employee Freedom Action Committee, headed by Rick Berman, a former tobacco lobbyist who has helped companies fend off union organizing. The group has run ads targeting Senate candidates in Minnesota, Oregon, Maine, New Hampshire and Louisiana, and expects to include Mississippi and several more states. Mr. Berman, who is also president of a consulting business named Berman & Co., said he is on track to raise $30 million for the project but refused to say who has provided funding.

The group will push out a flurry of television, radio and newspaper ads between now and early September, said spokesman Tim Miller. The group was set up as a 501c4 nonprofit so that it could name specific candidates in advertising, he said. But that also means it must run candidate ads before a blackout period begins 60 days prior to the November election.

The second group, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, was created by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business associations last year to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. The group has so far run ads in Minnesota and Maine and expects to spend up to $20 million, said Rhonda Bentz, a spokeswoman, who declined to identify the group's corporate funders. The group's Web site lists several hundred business associations as members.

One of the Coalition's ads running in Minnesota, where comedian Al Franken is running for the Senate as a Democrat, equates union organizers with those involved in organized crime. The ad features Vincent Curatola, who played "Johnny Sack" on the TV series "The Sopranos," speaking in character and praising Mr. Franken for his support of the legislation. A narrator says Mr. Franken supports eliminating secret ballot elections. "My pal, Al," says Mr. Curatola.

Andy Barr, a spokesman for Mr. Franken's campaign, said the candidate is "not wavering at all in his support of this important legislation." He described the ads as "unfortunate and very un-Minnesotan."

Mary Beth Maxwell, executive director of American Rights at Work, a labor advocacy group, says the ads are misleading because the legislation would make it easier for unions to organize workers via cards but would not eliminate secret ballots altogether.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of the liberal-leaning watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, described both groups as deceptive because they do not reveal their funding sources.

Mr. Berman said some groups, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, "don't like the fact that we're effective in getting our message out." He added, "The fact is we run a squeaky-clean operation and I'm well aware of them looking over my shoulder."